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GEiRMAu 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ERNEST  CARROLL  MOORE 


Linguistic  Oppression 


n 


he  German  Empire 


By 

ERNEST\J3ARKER 

FELLOW  AND  TUTOR  OF  NEW  COLLEGE.  OXFORD 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE    SUBMERGED    NATIONALITIES    OF     THE 
GERMAN  EMPIRE."  "  IRELAND  IN  THE  LAST  FIFTY  YEARS."  ETC. 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

1918 


PAMPHLETS  ON   THE  WAR 
PUBLISHED  BY   HARPER  &   BROTHERS 

THE   PIRATE'S   PROGRESS.    By  William  Archer 
GERMAN   WAR  AIMS.    By  Edwin  Sevan 
BLOOD   AND   TREASURE 

A     BRITISH     CARDINAL'S     VISIT     TO     THE 
WESTERN   FRONT 

THEIR  CRIMES 

GENERAL   VON   BISSING'S  TESTAMENT 

THE  MURDER  OF  A  NATION.     By  A.  J.  Toynbee 
With  a  Speech  and  Letter  by  Lord  Bryoe 

LINGUISTIC  OPPRESSION     IN  THE  GERMAN 
EMPIRE.     By  Ernest  Barker 


HARPER   &   BROTHERS,  NEW*  YORK 
\  (ESTABLISHED  1817] 


in 


LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 
IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE 

FOR  the  last  hundred  years  a  dominant  concep- 
tion among  the  Germans  has  been  that  of  "the 
folk"  (das  Yolk).  The  folk— they  have  thought 
and  said — is  a  being  and  almost  a  person;  and  as 
such  it  has  its  corresponding  attributes — its  sense  of 
right;  its  way  of  speech;  its  songs,  its  poetry  and 
its  music.  Law,  according  to  a  great  German  jurist, 
is  the  organ  of  folk-right;  folk-music,  folk-songs, 
folk-poetry — all  these  are  the  natural  outpourings 
of  the  Volksgeist;  while  as  for  the  folk-speech,  that 
is  not  only  the  medium  for  the  expression,  but 
also  the  condition  of  the  existence,  of  these  other 
things. 

The  philosophy  of  Hegel  represents  in  many  ways 
the  apotheosis  of  this  German  idea  of  the  folk.  To 
Hegel  the  folk,  politically  organised  as  a  state,  is 
the  home  of  a  system  of  social  ethics  that  inspires 
and  controls  the  life  of  the  individual,  who  finds  his 

1545987 


4  LINGUISTIC   OPPRESSION 

peace  in  its  will  and  his  duty  in  filling  duly  a  station 
in  its  system.  "The  spirit  of  a  nation  controls  and 
entirely  dominates  from  within  each  person,"  so 
that  "he  feels  it  to  be  his  own  very  being.  .  ,  .  he 
looks  upon  it  as  his  absolute  final  aim,"  and  "his 
life  is  hid  with  that  of  his  fellows  in  the  common  life 
of  his  people."  The  "culture"  of  the  folk — the  na- 
tion or  people — thus  becomes  a  sacred  tradition; 
and  the  language  in  which  it  is  enshrined  becomes,  as 
it  were,  the  vehicle  which  carries  the  holy  ark  of 
the  covenant.  • 

Imbued  with  ideas  of  this  order,  the  Germans 
have  shown  themselves  sedulously  careful  to  main- 
tain the  purity  of  their  language,  seeking  to  exclude 
all  foreign  or  "Welsh"  words,  and  to  express  every 
idea  and  every  concept  by  means  of  native  Ger- 
manic words.  "This  movement,"  it  is  said,  "has 
\ 

grown  with  the  growth  of  national  unity,  and  a 
powerful  society,  the  Sprachverein,  has  been  recently 
founded,  and  has  published  handbooks  of  native 
words  for  almost  every  department  of  modern  life." 
Thus  the  language  of  commerce,  of  chemistry  and 
of  every  range  of  thought,  is  made  purely  German ; 
and  thus  the  German  language,  unlike  the  English, 
which  has  borrowed  freely  ,and  continues  to  borrow 
freely,  from  almost  every  language  that  has  been  or 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  5 

now  is  spoken,  remains  what  we  may  call  "self- 
sufficient,"  and  indebted  to  no  other. 

Much  may  be  said,  both  for  and  against  this 
cult  of  linguistic  purity.  A  language  which  re- 
fuses to  borrow  from  other  languages  loses  that 
flexibility,  subtlety  of  expression  and  variety  of 
shades  of  meaning,  which  an  abundance  of  "loan- 
words" enables  a  language  that  borrows  such 
words  freely  to  attain;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
linguistic  purity  conduces  to  a  political  result,  as 
indeed  it  is  largely  based  on  a  political  motive — a 
conscious  and  vivid  sense  of  national  unity  and 
national  uniqueness.* 

But  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  two  ideals — 
"nationalism  in  language,  as  against  borrowing;  a 
pure,  as  opposed  to  a  mixed,  language" — a  new  and 
difficult  problem  arises,  when  we  find  the  people 
who  use  the  pure  German  tongue  seeking  to  suppress 
other  tongues  that  are  used  within  the  boundaries 
of  German  territory — the  Polish,  the  Danish  and 
the  French.  This  is  a  policy  which  the  Germans  have 
more  and  more  pursued  since  they  finally  attained 
their  own  national  unity  in  1870;  and  it  is  a  policy 
which  cannot  but  seem  to  most  of  us  illogical  and 

*  See  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith's  volume  in  the  Home  University  Library 
on  The  English  Language,  Chapter  II.,  and  especially  pp.  55-62. 


6  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

inconsistent.  If  folk-speech  is  a  consecrated  thing, 
because  it  is  the  vehicle  of  folk-culture,  surely  the 
folk-speech  of  Poles  and  Danes  and  Frenchmen  can 
plead  a  title  to  existence,  and  a  right  to  be  used 
no  less  than  that  of  the  Germans.  To  inflict  dumb- 
ness on  a  people  and  to  mutilate  its  tongue,  at  the 
same  time  that  you  proclaim  the  pure  sanctity  of 
your  own  speech,  is  to  sin  against  the  spirit  of 
nationality  with  the  same  breath  with  which  you 
proclaim  it  holy. 

Why,  then,  do  the  Germans  seek  to  coerce  into 
the  use  of  an  alien  speech — a  speech  which  is  the 
vehicle  of  a  culture  that  is  not  their  own  culture — 
those  peoples  who  dwell  in  German  territory,  but  do 
not  belong  by  blood  or  tradition  to  the  German  peo- 
ple itself?  At  bottom,  perhaps,  the  reason  is  an 
instinctive  feeling  that  the  area  of  German  govern- 
ment should  be  also  the  area  of  German  nationality, 
and  that,  if  there  are  alien  elements  in  the  area  of 
German  government,  they  must  be,  as  it  were,  chem- 
ically changed  and  transmuted  until  they  are  unified 
with  and  incorporated  into  the  area  of  German 
nationality.  Just  as  foreign  words  must  be  purged 
from  the  German  language,  so  foreign  languages 
must  be  purged  from  the  German  soil;  and  just  as 
it  is  resolved  that  foreign  words  must  not  be  used  in 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  7 

German  speech,  so  it  is  enacted  that  foreign  speech 
must  not  be  used  on  German  soil. 

The  analogy  here  implied  and  used  is  not,  of 
course,  a  true  or  valid  analogy.  It  is  one  thing  for 
a  German  who  speaks  German  to  say  that  he  him- 
self will  use  no  word  but  German,  nor  does  he  lose 
his  freedom  if  he  thus  abnegates  the  use  of  foreign 
words:  it  is  another  thing  for  a  German  to  say  that 
other  peoples  within  the  German  borders,  who  do  not 
speak  German,  shall  use  no  language  but  German 
in  schools  and  courts  of  law  and  public  meetings, 
and  these  other  peoples  do  lose  their  freedom  when 
they  are  thus  compulsorily  deprived  of  the  use  of 
their  native  language.  But  the  analogy,  however, 
untrue,  is  pressed,  as  we  shall  see,  to  its  uttermost 
consequences. 

The  instinctive  feeling  which  leads  to  its  applica- 
tion is  corroborated  by  other  instincts.  There  is  the 
German  passion  for  drill  and  uniformity  and  Polizei, 
Accustomed  to  putting  men  into  actual  and  physical 
uniform,  the  German  Government  has  drifted,  as  it 
were,  by  a  curious  extension  of  policy,  into  the  habit 
of  seeking  to  put  men  into  metaphorical  and  mental 
uniform.  After  all,  it  can  be  argued,  the  army  needs 
a  uniform  language  of  command;  and  if  the  army 
demands  linguistic  unity,  will  not  linguistic  unity 


8  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

best  suit  the  needs  of  the  schools,  the  law-courts,  and 
all  public  intercourse?  The  administration  of  edu- 
cation will  be  easier  if  schools  are  not  bilingual ;  the 
administration  of  justice  will  be  simpler  if  there  is 
only  one  language  for  pleading;  the  whole  of  public 
administration  will  run  on  a  single  gear,  instead  of 
running  on  several,  if  the  State  addresses  its  sub- 
jects, 'and  can  always  expect  to  be  addressed  by  its 
subjects,  in  a  single  language. 

Last,  but  by  no  means  least,  we  have  to  remember 
that  spirit  of  exclusive  nationalism  which  has  entered 
so  strongly  and  so  pervasively  into  German  life. 
There  is  the  feeling  that  German  culture  is  so  large, 
so  embracing,  so  universal,  that  it  is  good  for  all  to 
use  the  language  which  is  the  key  to  all  its  treasures. 
If  men  are  forced  to  use  it,  they  are  after  all  being 
"forced  to  be  free";  and  at  the  cost  of  a  little 
compulsion  in  their  school-days  they  are  initiated 
into  the  large  freedom  of  the  mind,  which  will 
come  from  a  full  and  liberal  education  in  German 
speech,  and,  through  German  speech,  in  German 
culture. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  the 
period  between  the  end  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war 
and  the  beginning  of  the  present  war  is  filled  with 
examples  of  linguistic  oppression  in  the  German 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  9 

Empire.  That  oppression  takes  four  main  forms. 
First  and  foremost,  it  affects  the  school;  and  since 
religious  instruction  is  part  of  the  work  of  the  school, 
it  affects  religious  instruction,  and  tends  to  result 
in  something  perilously  akin  to  religious  persecution. 
Secondly,  it  affects  the  law-court,  the  post-office  and 
all  the  organs  of  public  administration.  Thirdly, 
it  affects  public  meetings;  and  finally — and  most 
striking  of  all — under  decrees  like  that  of  April,  1899, 
which  required  teachers  in  Posen  to  disuse  Polish 
in  the  family  circle,  and  under  police  action  such 
as  that  which  entails  domiciliary  visits  for  the 
seizure  of  Polish  literature,  it  affects  the  home 
itself. 

Much  of  the  oppression  is  based  on  administrative 
orders,  such  as  the  orders  of  the  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion, which  make  the  use  of  German  compulsory  in 
schools ;  some  of  it  is  based  on  administrative  action 
by  the  police ;  but  part  of  it  is  based  on  direct  legis- 
lation by  the  German  Reichstag  itself,  and  oppression 
of  this  kind  cannot  be  ascribed  to  "bureaucratic-" 
methods,  but  must  necessarily  be  referred  to  the 
deliberate  will  of  the  German  people  itself,  as  ex- 
pressed by  its  representatives.  It  is  a  law  of  the 
Reichstag  of  1908  which  regulates  the  use  of  lan- 
guages other  than  German  in  public  meetings. 


io  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

Under  Article  12  of  that  law — the  law  of  associa- 
tions— the  use  of  German  is  made  compulsory  in 
public  meetings,  except  at  election  times.  An 
exception  is  made  for  those  districts  in  which  more 
than  60  per  cent,  of  the  population  do  not  speak 
German;  but  even  this  exception  is  to  disappear 
at  the  end  of  twenty  years  from  the  passing  of  the 
Act.  A  Polish  deputy,  therefore,  must  speak  to  his 
constituents  in  German,  except  at  election  times — 
or  unless  the  district  in  which  he  is  speaking  is  one 
which  contains  more  than  60  per  cent,  of  inhabitants 
who  do  not  speak  German.* 

*  In  the  town  of  Posen  itself  the  Polish  inhabitants,  though  a 
majority,  are  only  57  per  cent,  of  the  population,  and  therefore  (ex- 
cept at  election  times)  they  cannot  be  addressed  in  Polish  in  any 
public  meeting. 


IN    THE   GERMAN    EMPIRE  n 


I.-PRUSSIAN  POLAND 

It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  comprehend  the 
methods  and  the  results  of  linguistic  oppression  in 
the  German  Empire,  to  study  separately  the  three 
.main  areas  of  such  oppression — Prussian  Poland, 
Danish  Slesvig  and  Alsace-Lorraine.  The  methods 
used,  and  the  results  attained,  are  indeed  much  the 
same  in  all  the  three  areas;  and  the  law  of  1908 
applies  to  them  all  equally.  But  the  three  areas 
differ  in  some  respects ;  and  the  methods  and  results 
of  linguistic  oppression,  so  far  as  it  is  based  on  ad- 
ministrative action,  which  in  its  nature  varies  from 
one  area  to  another,  have  also  shown  a  number  of 
differences. 

In  this  connection  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  Poles  and  the  Danes  in  the  German  Empire  are 
subjects  of  Prussia,  and  as  such  are  governed  by  the 
Prussian  Ministry;  while  the  people  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  are  not  included  in  Prussia,  their  country 
being  a  federal  territory  (ReicHsland)  which  is 
governed  by  the  federal  authority.  Another  dif- 
ference, which  is  also  important,  is  that  the  Poles 
are  distinct  from  the  Germans  of  Prussia  both  in 


12  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

religion  and  language;  the  Danes  differ  in  language, 
but  not  in  religion ;  while  the  majority  of  the  people 
of  Alsace-Lorraine  differ  in  religion  (being  Roman 
Catholics),  but  not  in  language — speaking,  as  they 
do,  a  German  dialect. 

In  1815  Frederic  William  III.,  in  a  rescript  to  his 
Polish  subjects,  promised  to  respect  their  nationality 
and  to  give  their  language  an  equal  position  with 
German  in  public  meetings.  Down  to  1870  the 
promise  was  on  the  whole  observed.  Between  1830 
and  1841,  it  is  true,  a  governor  of  the  province  of 
Posen,  Flottwell  by  name,  pursued  a  policy  of 
Germanisation,  founding  schools  to  encourage  Ger- 
man culture,  and  buying  land  from  Polish  owners 
to  sell  it  again  to  Germans.  But  his  policy  was  not 
extreme:  the  Poles  remained  loyal  subjects  of 
Prussia;  and  they  fought  for  Prussia  in  the  war 
against  Austria  in  1866  and  the  war  against  France 
in  1870.  Almost  immediately  after  1870,  however, 
Bismarck  began  a  campaign  against  the  Poles.  In 
1872  he  embarked  on  a  struggle  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  which  is  the  Church  of  the  Poles. 
"The  beginning  of  this  struggle,"  he  says  in  his 
Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  "was  decided  for  me 
preponderantly  by  its  Polish  side";  and  he  refers 
to  statistics  which  "proved  the  rapid  progress  of  the 
Polish  nationality  at  the  expense  of  the  Germans," 
and  to  official  reports  which  showed  that  "there 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  13 

were  whole  villages  in  Posen  and  West  Prussia 
containing  thousands  of  Germans  who  through  the 
influence  of  the  Catholic  section  had  been  educated 
according  to  Polish  ideas,  and  were  officially  de- 
scribed as  Poles,  though  in  the  previous  generation 
they  were  officially  Germans."*  To  meet  this  situa- 
tion, a  law  of  1872  deprived  the  clergy  of  the  right 
of  inspecting  schools  which  they  had  hitherto  en- 
joyed, and  gave  the  work  to  Government  officials. 
Next  year,  1873,  an  administrative  order  required 
that  the  German  language  alone  should  be  employed 
in  schools,  except  for  religious  instruction — though 
even  for  this  purpose  German  might  be  used,  if  the 
pupils  were  sufficiently  advanced  to  understand  the 
language. 

The  war  thus  begun  in  the  schools  was  continued 
and  extended  in  succeeding  years.  A  further  step 
was  attempted  in  1883,  when  the  provincial  Govern- 
ment of  Posen  ordered  that  religious  instruction 
should  be  given  in  German,  if  half  the  students  in  a 
school  were  of  German  birth.  The  Prussian  Minister 
of  Education  at  the  time  disapproved  of  the  order, 
and  it  was  rescinded;  but  a  later  Minister,  Dr. 
Studt,  reversed  the  action  of  his  predecessor,  and 
since  the  beginning  of  this  century  the  principle 
of  the  order  of  1883  has  been  enforced,  the  alleged 

*  Bismarck,  Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  138, 
139  of  the  English  Translation. 


14 

grounds  being  "the  awkwardness  of  a  bilingual  sys- 
tem of  education,  and  still  more  the  persistent 
efforts  of  the  Poles  to  make  their  privileged  position 
a  means  of  racial  isolation."  By  thus  enforcing  on 
Polish  children  religious  instruction  given  in  a  lan- 
guage other  than  their  own,  the  Prussian  Govern- 
ment has  practically  turned  linguistic  oppression 
into  religious  persecution;  and,  indeed,  as  the 
confession  of  Bismarck  quoted  above  sufficiently 
illustrates,  the  anti-Polish  policy  of  the  Government 
was  from  the  first  also  anti-Catholic  in  its  motives. 

Besides  interfering  with  religious  instruction,  the 
Prussian  Government  has  also  interfered  with  the 
life  of  the  family.  A  decree  of  1899,  already  men- 
tioned above,  required  teachers — German  teachers 
who  had  married  Polish  wives — to  cease  to  use  the 
Polish  language  in  their  homes.  Children  who  are 
deaf-mutes  are  instructed  in  German — with  the  result 
that  they  cannot  converse  with  their  father  and 
mother,  their  sisters  and  brothers.  The  possession  of 
Polish  books  dealing  with  Polish  history  and  litera- 
ture renders  a  pupil  liable  to  exclusion  from  second- 
ary schools.  Domiciliary  visits  by  the  police  are 
the  inevitable  result  of  this  rule;  and  such  visits, 
in  their  turn,  inevitably  result  in  "incidents"  and 
misery.  At  Thorn,  for  instance,  a  town  in  West 
Prussia,  the  police  suspected  a  secret  society  of 
school-boys.  They  visited  the  homes  of  a  number 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  15 

of  boys  attending  one  of  the  schools,  which  they 
thought  to  be  the  centre  of  the  "conspiracy,"  and 
in  six  of  the  homes  they  found  historical  and  religious 
books  printed  in  Polish,  which  were  immediately 
confiscated.  Sixty  of  the  boys  were  charged  with 
belonging  to  an  illegal  society,  and  brought  to  trial. 
That  there  was  a  society  among  the  boys,  and  that 
the  object  of  the  society  was  to  study  Polish  history 
and  literature  (subjects  excluded  from  the  curriculum 
of  the  schools),  was  not  denied;  that  there  was  any 
"conspiracy,"  or  any  "illegal"  intention,  was  not 
and  could  not  be  proved.  None  the  less,  a  number 
of  the  boys  were  expelled  from  the  town  and  the 
district — only  to  be  aided,  by  a  sum  of  £  1,000  raised 
by  Polish  students  in  Switzerland,  to  pursue  their 
studies  at  Lemberg  and  Cracow,  in  Austrian  Poland, 
where  the  Government  was  not  so  impossibly  rigor- 
ous. 

Under  conditions  such  as  these,  school  life  becomes 
a  burden  and  a  torment.  The  German  schoolmaster 
becomes  a  rigorous  martinet:  the  Polish  school-boy 
becomes  a  sullen  rebel :  the  school  becomes  a  battle- 
ground. Children  are  punished  by  the  police  for 
misdemeanours  committed  in  school :  one  pupil  may 
be  confined  in  a  house  of  correction  for  not  giving  his 
answers  in  German  during  a  lesson  on  the  cate- 
chism; another  may  be  condemned  to  four  months' 
imprisonment  for  lese-majeste,  because  he  has  spoken 


16  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

' '  treasonably ' '  about  current  politics.  While  children 
are  punished,  parents  are  fined.  A  French  author, 
writing  in  1910,  estimates  the  total  of  the  fines  up  to 
that  date  at  a  sum  of  £10,000.  The  result  of  the  whole 
system  is  truancy  en  masse  and  a  system  of  school- 
strikes.  A  series  of  such  strikes  began  in  1906,  and 
lasted  into  the  spring  of  1907.  They  began  in  Posen, 
but  they  extended  as  far  as  Breslau  in  Silesia.  In 
October,  1906,  there  were  40,000  children  on  strike, 
and  in  the  course  of  1907  as  many  as  60,000.  The 
Government  replied  with  a  heavy  hand,  by  whole- 
sale dismissals,  imprisonments  and  fines.  For  "in- 
citement" to  school-strikes  35  priests  were  sentenced 
to  periods  of  imprisonment  amounting  in  the  aggre- 
gate to  20  months,  and  to  fines  amounting  to  £317; 
1,450  parents  were  fined  £900  for  the  non-attendance 
of  their  children  at  school;  other  persons  were  sen- 
tenced to  terms  of  imprisonment  amounting  in  the 
aggregate  to  6>£  years  for  offences  connected  with 
the  school-strikes. 

So  far  of  the  schools.  Linguistic  oppression,  how- 
ever, has  also  invaded  other  areas  than  that  of  the 
school.  In  1870  Polish  was  still  used  in  the  law- 
courts  and  Government  offices :  a  Pole  might  still  ad- 
dress the  Government  in  Polish,  and  still  be  answered 
in  Polish.  That  has  all  been  changed.  German  is 
now  the  only  language  of  justice  and  administration ; 
and  just  before  the  war,  in  1913,  Prussian  postmen 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  17 

were  refusing  to' transmit  or  deliver  letters  addressed 
in  Polish.  Persons  with  Polish  names  are  pressed  or 
forced  to  change  them  to  a  German  form;  a  Pole 
called  Szulc  or  Szuman  may  be  fined  if  he  fails  to 
write  himself  Schultz  or  Schumann.  Villages  and 
streets  have  been  rebaptized  in  German;  over  2,000 
streets,  it  is  said,  have  been  thus  renamed  in  the 
dominant  language.  Shop  signs  must  be  in  German ; 
the  very  inscriptions  on  tomb-stones  must  be  in 
German;  railway  book-stalls  must  not  sell  Polish 
papers.  A  Polish  deputy,  speaking  in  the  Prussian 
Parliament  not  long  ago,  could  say:  "No  Pole  can 
plead  his  own  cause  before  the  courts  in  his  mother 
tongue,  and  should  he  wish  to  employ  it  before  the 
administrative  authorities,  he  is  not  heard.  .  .  .  Im- 
memorial names  are  summarily  abolished.  .  .-  . 
Family  names  are  distorted  by  the  authorities. 
Every  class  meeting  is  held  under  police  surveillance, 
and  open-air  meetings  are  prohibited  altogether, 
Polish  theatrical  performances  are  for  the  most  part 
forbidden  or  stopped." 

The  interference  of  the  Government  with  public 
meetings  and  with  the  drama — it  should  also  be 
added,  with  the  Press — is  an  interference  with  free- 
dom of  thought  and  its  expression  only  second,  if 
indeed  it  is  second,  to  interference  with  freedom  of 
education.  The  law  of  1908  on  public  meetings  has 
already  been  mentioned.  Polish  drama  is  every- 


xS  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

where  prohibited,  except,  it  is  said,  in  the  town  of 
Posen  during  the  winter;  and  Polish  amateurs  can- 
not produce  a  Polish  play,  because  a  translation  has 
to  be  presented  to  the  police  in  order  that  their  con- 
sent may  be  obtained — a  consent  which  always  ar- 
rives too  late.  Polish  papers  are  subject  to  rigorous 
supervision,  and  their  editors  often  find  their  way  to 
prison,  though  this,  it  should  be  added,  is  a  fate  not 
unknown  to  editors  of  German  papers.  The  result  of 
this  repression  is  intellectual  stagnation.  It  is  hard 
for  the  things  of  the  mind  to  flourish  under  a  censor- 
ship of  this  order;  and  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
Poles  has  migrated  steadily  from  Prussian  Poland  to 
the  milder  air  of  Austrian  Poland. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  oppression,  the  unconquerable 
spirit  of  the  Poles  has  striven  to  maintain  its  life  and 
vigour.  Voluntary  effort  and  voluntary  associations 
—which  have  played  a  great  part  in  Poland,  particu- 
larly in  the  \economic  sphere,  but  also,  and  with 
almost  equal  vigour,  in  the  intellectual — have  been 
directed  to  the  preservation  of  the  national  life. 
The  "Sokol"  associations  of  the  Poles,  for  social 
and  educational  purposes,  are  numerous;  there  are 
said  to  be  as  many  as  1,000,  each  with  a  membership 
of  about  100.  The  congress  of  Sokols  at  Posen  in 
1905  decided  to  organise  courses  of  lectures  and 
conferences  on  literary  and  historical  subjects.  If 
Polish  culture  is  excluded  from  the  official  schools, 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  19 

it  is  thus  fostered  by  the  voluntary  agency  of  educa- 
tional associations,  which  correspond,  in  their  way, 
to  our  own  "Workers'  Educational  Association"; 
and  as  long  as  these  associations  are  active,  Polish 
speech  and  Polish  culture  cannot  die.  The  Polish 
Press,  whatever  the  surveillance  to  which  it  is  sub- 
ject, continues  to  exist ;  its  chief  organ  is  said  to  have 
a  circulation  of  70,000.  Popular  libraries  are  also 
flourishing;  they  disseminate  the  national  literature, 
and  serve,  along  with  the  Press,  as  an  instrument  of 
national  education. 

On  the  whole,  the  German  policy  of  linguistic 
oppression  has  failed  to  attain  its  object  in  Prussian 
Poland.  Indirectly  it  has  even  benefited  the  Poles. 
Taught  to  be  bilingual,  they  have  found  their  gift 
of  tongues  to  be  economically  valuable,  and  they 
have  been  successful  competitors  for  business  with 
German  rivals,  who  only  knew  and  could  only  use 
a  single  language.  This  is  an  undesigned  mercy, 
which  can  hardly  excuse  those  who  have  been  its 
involuntary  donors.  It  has  won  the  Prussian 
Government  no  gratitude;  while  the  design  and  the 
execution  of  its  linguistic  policy  have  turned  the 
Poles,  loyal  subjects  of  Prussia  fifty  years  ago,  into 
the  ways  of  passive  resistance  and  resolute,  if  quiet, 
defiance.  A  race  which  was,  and  might  have  con- 
tinued to  be,  loyal,  if  it  had  been  left  free  to  speak 
and  to  use  its  own  language,  has  lost  its  loyalty 


2o  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION  ^ 

when  it  was  commanded  to  speak  and  to  use  an 
alien  language  as  a  sign  of  loyalty. 

The  perverse  policy  of  the  German  Government 
has  naturally  had  perverse  results.  Intended  to 
Germanise  the  Poles,  it  has  made  them  more  Polish. 
Intended  to  incorporate  them  in  German  culture,  it 
has  driven  them  back  on  the  ardent  cultivation  of 
their  own.  Intended  to  create  loyalty,  it  has  de- 
stroyed loyalty.  Intended  to  strengthen  German- 
ism, it  has  strengthened  the  Poles  at  the  expense  of 
the  Germans. 

"The  Polish  language,"  wrote  a  German  professor 
in  1914,  "gains  not  only  in  the  country  districts, 
but  also  in  the  towns,  and  even  in  the  town  of  Posen. 
The  Polish  middle  class  grows,  while  the  German 
decreases."  But  it  is  always  so.  He  who  sows 
dragons'  teeth  can  only  reap  a  crop  of  armed  and 
defiant  warriors. 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  21 


II.— DANISH  SLESVIG 

SUCH  is  the  treatment  of  their  language  that  has 
been  meted  out  to  the  3,500,000  Poles  in  Prussia. 
That  treatment  has  been  the  model  which  the  Ger- 
mans have  followed  in  dealing  with  the  Danes  of 
Northern  Slesvig.  At  first  sight  it  is  curious  that 
they  should  have  done  so.  There  are  only  some 
150,000  Danes  in  Northern  Slesvig;  and  it  could 
hardly  have  threatened  German  culture  if  they  had 
continued  to  use  their  own  language  freely.  The 
Danes,  again,  are  Protestant,  like  the  majority  of 
the  Germans  of  Prussia;  and  one  might  have  ex- 
pected to  find  a  natural  bond  of  religious  sympathy 
between  Prussia  and  the  Danes,  such  as  could  not 
exist  between  Prussia  and  the  Catholic  Poles. 

But  the  Prussian  passion  for  uniformity  and  rule 
has  triumphed  over  these  differences ;  and  the  Danes, 
in  spite  of  the  differences  of  their  position,  have 
been  treated  on  parallel  lines  with  the  Poles.  "To 
conquer  the  school  is  to  conquer  the  future,"  said 
Bismarck;  and  on  that  line,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
acted  in  dealing  with  the  Poles.  It  is  exactly  on 


22  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

the  same  line  that  the  Prussian  Government  has 
acted  towards  the  Danes. 

It  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of  the  history  of  German 
education  that  the  school,  instead  of  being  used  as 
an  end  in  itself,  should  have  been  used  as  a  means 
to  political  objects.  This  is  the  real  meaning  of 
Bismarck's  saying;  and  it  has  been  the  real  motive 
of  much  of  the  educational  policy  of  the  Prussian 
Government.  Dr.  Studt  (the  Prussian  Minister  of 
Education  who  was  responsible  for  the  order  that 
religious  instruction  should  be  given  to  the  Poles  in 
German  if  half  of  the  pupils  of  a  school  were  of 
German  birth)  is  reported  to  have  said  in  1907,  in 
visiting  North  Slesvig:  "Teachers  should  always 
remember  that  it  is  their  mission  to  educate  children 
by  inculcating  the  sentiments  of  loyalty  and  love 
to  the  German  fatherland."  To  import  a  political 
motive  into  education  is  fatal  to  a  free  and  liberal 
education;  and  when  that  political  motive  results 
in  the  use  of  compulsion,  and  the  drilling  of  a  non- 
German  population  in  German  speech  and  history 
and  culture,  it  is  fatal  to  any  sort  of  education 
at  all.  This  has  been  the  experience  of  North 
Slesvig. 

North  Slesvig  came  definitely  under  the  rule  of 
Prussia  in  1866.  It  was  with  reluctance  that  the 
Danes  of  the  district  came  under  her  rule;  and  it  is 
important  to  bear  in  mind  that,  under  a  treaty  of  the 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  23 

year  1866,  it  had  been  agreed  between  Prussia  and 
Austria  that  North  Slesvig  should  be  ceded  to 
Denmark  if  its  inhabitants,  on  a  free  vote  being 
taken,  should  express  a  desire  for  union.  The  agree- 
ment was  never  fulfilled,  but  the  Danes  long  hoped 
that  it  might  be,  and  that  hope  was  a  fact  which  for 
many  years  complicated  their  relations  with  the 
Prussian  Government,  determined  as  it  was  to  retain 
the  Danes  in  its  allegiance,  and  to  use  every  means  in 
its  power  to  encourage  their  "loyalty  and  love  to 
the  German  fatherland." 

A  decree  of  1871  commenced — it  is  true,  on  a 
modest  scale — the  application  of  the  principle  of 
linguistic  compulsion  in  the  elementary  schools  of 
North  Slesvig.  By  this  decree  the  Danish  language 
was  left  as  the  medium  of  instruction;  but  the  Ger- 
man language  was  made  compulsory  as  a  subject 
of  instruction  in  the  middle  and  upper  classes  of  all 
schools.  The  number  of  lessons  was  fixed  at  six  a 
week,  but  it  might  be  increased  to  eight  or  ten,  if 
the  majority  expressed  a  desire  to  that  effect — the 
additional  lessons  being  devoted,  in  that  case,  to 
the  study  of  the  history  of  the  German  Empire. 

The  next  step  was  taken  in  1878,  and  it  went  much 
further.  By  a  law  of  1876  German  had  been  made 
the  official  language  of  business  in  North  Slesvig, 
and  by  an  order  of  1878  the  German  language,  which 
had  been  since  1871  a  necessary  subject  of  instruction 


24  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

in  elementary  schools,  was  made  henceforth  a  medium 
of  instruction  on  the  same  footing  as  Danish.  Infants 
were  henceforth  to  have  six  half-hours  of  teaching 
in  German ;  the  middle  classes  of  elementary  schools 
were  to  have  ten  lessons  in  German;  the  upper 
classes  were  to  have  twelve  lessons  in  German 
(three  in  reading,  two  in  writing,  one  in  grammar, 
one  in  singing,  two  in  geography,  two  in  history 
and  one  in  mental  arithmetic),  in  addition  to  two 
lessons  in  German  gymnastics.  It  was  also  ordered 
that  German  might  be  used  as  the  medium  of  all 
instruction  if  a  majority  presented  a  request  to  that 
effect — or  if  it  was  required  by  the  official  authorities 
of  the  district. 

This  was  not  all.  Under  a  number  of  regulations 
subsequently  made,  private  or  free  Danish  schools 
were  suppressed,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  not 
necessary;  parents  were  forbidden  to  send  children 
of  school  age  to  schools  in  Denmark;  private  edu- 
cation in  the  home  was  limited;  teachers  were  or- 
dered to  talk  to  their  pupils  in  German  during  games 
and  out  of  school,  and  women  teachers  to  talk  to 
girls  in  German  while  they  were  giving  them  manual 
instruction.  These  last  orders  have,  it  is  true, 
remained  a  dead  letter  in  some  districts  even  to  the 
present  time.  Teachers  whose  natural  language  is 
Danish  unconsciously  fall  into  Danish  in  spite  of 
official  orders.  But  the  order  shows  the  spirit  of 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  25 

the  Government;  and  that  spirit  equally  appeared 
in  another  order,  requiring  inspectors  of  elementary 
schools  to  take  notice  of  clergymen  who,  in  their 
capacity  of  local  inspectors  of  schools,  used  the  Dan- 
ish language  in  writing  or  speaking  to  teachers. 

A  new  and  still  more  drastic  epoch  opened  in  1888. 
William  II.  had  just  succeeded  to  the  throne,  and 
an  order  of  December,  1888,  signalised  his  accession 
by  what  has  been  called  the  "assassination"  of  the 
Danish  language  in  the  elementary  schools  of  North 
Slesvig.  The  ordinance  consisted  of  five  articles. 
According  to  the  first  sentence  of  the  first  article, 
"Instruction  in  the  schools  of  North  Slesvig  must 
be  given  in  German  in  all  subjects  except  religion." 
According  to  the  second  article,  religious  instruction 
may  be  given  in  Danish  in  parishes  where  Danish 
is  the  language  used  in  churches,  provided  that 
German  has  not  already  been  used  for  that  purpose — 
but  the  Government  may  authorise  the  use  of 
German  if  conditions  demand  it  and  the  district 
expresses  a  desire  for  it.  According  to  the  third 
article,  six  lessons  a  week  may  be  devoted  to  re- 
ligious instruction  in  Danish,  but  two  supplementary 
lessons  must  be  given  in  German  in  the  middle  and 
upper  classes  of  schools.  According  to  the  last  article, 
school  inspectors  and  teachers  are  to  use  the  German 
language,  and  to  see  that  it  is  used  in  the  intercourse 
of  children  with  one  another. 


26  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  the  policy  of  this  order 
of  1888.  When  the  order  was  issued  the  Danish 
language  was  in  no  sense  a  political  symbol  or 
rallying-ground  in  North  Slesvig.  Many  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  province  who  were  German  in 
sympathy  spoke  Danish;  and  at  the  very  time 
when  the  order  was  published,  the  governor  of  the 
province  was  using  Danish  papers  to  promote  a 
German  propaganda.  The  effect  of  the  order  was 
simply  to  turn  the  Danish  language  into  the  political 
symbol  which  it  had  never  been  before.  It  also 
served  to  produce  a  definite  set-back  in  education 
throughout  the  province.  Instruction  given  to 
Danish  children  exclusively  in  German  (as  all  educa- 
tion in  secular  subjects  had  to  be)  was  necessarily 
mechanical  and  external — a  matter  of  memorisation 
of  German  text-books,  through  which,  instead  of 
acquiring  knowledge,  children  acquired  the  tech- 
nique of  a  foreign  language. 

Finally,  even  religious  instruction,  though  it  might 
be  given  in  Danish,  was  impeded  and  hampered. 
Children  received  religious  instruction  in  their 
native  tongue  without  receiving  any  instruction  in 
their  native  tongue  itself;  and  the  result  was  that 
they  failed  to  understand  the  terms  and  the  phrases 
in  which  religious  instruction  was  given.  It  is  one 
thing  to  use  a  language  colloquially  in  the  house; 
it  is  another  thing  to  comprehend  its  syntax  and  the 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  27 

exact  sense  of  its  vocabulary.  Deprived  of  such 
comprehension,  the  pupils  who  were  granted  the 
concession  of  religious  instruction  in  Danish  soon 
found  that  the  concession  was  illusory.  Under  these 
conditions  it  was  natural  that  a  movement  should 
be  started  in  North  Slesvig  for  securing  some  amount 
of  instruction  in  Danish  (it  was  suggested  that  there 
should  be  two  lessons  a  week)  as  an  antecedent  and 
necessary  condition  of  the  proper  comprehension  of 
religious  instruction  in  Danish.  The  basis  of  the 
movement  was  the  argument  that  the  order  of  1888 
was  a  danger  to  the  religious  life  of  the  school 
children  of  the  province;  and  the  synods  of  the 
various  deaneries  pressed  the  argument  and  sup- 
ported the  movement,  which  was  also  backed  by 
powerful  minorities  in  the  general  provincial  synod. 
The  movement,  though  it  continued  steadily  from 
1888  to  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war,  has  had  no 
success;  and  a  system  which,  while  seeming  to 
favour,  really  discourages  religious  instruction  is  still 
in  vogue  in  North  Slesvig.*  Once  more,  as  we  have 

*  One  feature  of  the  system  is  curious.  Children  who  receive  re- 
ligious instruction  in  Danish  have  two  supplementary  lessons  for 
religious  instruction  in  German  every  week.  Children  who  receive 
religious  instruction  in  German  have  no  such  supplementary  lessons. 
Children  do  not  love  "supplementary  lessons,"  and  are  tempted 
to  receive  religious  instruction  in  German  in  order  to  escape  them. 
This  provision  suggests,  what  other  evidence  also  seems  to  indicate, 
that  the  Prussian  authorities  are  ready,  by  any  manner  of  inducement, 
to  abolish  religious  instruction  in  Danish,  and  with  it  all  instruction 
in  Danish  whatsoever. 


28  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

already  had  occasion  to  notice  in  treating  of  Poland, 
lingusitic  oppression  comes  very  near  to  religious 
persecution. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  the  Danish 
clergy  of  North  Slesvig  would  have  taken  the  lead 
in  the  movement  for  improving  religious  instruction 
in  Danish.  This  has  not  been  the  case.  The  clergy 
are  forced  to  take  an  oath  to  the  Prussian  King,  and 
they  are  dependent  on  the  Prussian  State.  The 
movement  has  thus  been  left,  on  the  whole,  to  the 
laity,  who  are  strongly  represented  in  the  synods  of 
the  deaneries  and  are  also  represented  in  the  general 
provincial  synod.  It  would  be  unfair  to  the  clergy, 
however,  not  to  add  that  many  of  them  have  pro- 
tested that  religious  life  was  gravely  menaced  by 
the  system  of  1888  and  that,  as  a  result  of  that 
system,  few  of  the  children  could  take  an  active 
part  in  divine  service.  In  the  general  provincial 
synod  of  191  i,  many  of  the  leading  clergy  supported 
the  opposition  to  the  system,  and  forty  votes  out  of 
eighty-two  were  cast  in  favour  of  change. 

In  spite  of  all  opposition  to  the  Prussian  Govern- 
ment, however,  the  cause  of  religious  instruction 
in  Danish  would  seem  to  be  a  losing  cause.  An 
elementary  inspector  remarked  to  a  Danish  teacher, 
not  long  ago,  that  it  was  curious  that  religious 
instruction  in  Danish  had  not  ceased  in  his  school, 
'  and  that  he  was  to  blame  for  its  continuance.  When 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  29 

the  teacher  replied  that  parents  were  free  to  choose 
the  language  in  which  they  wished  their  children  to 
be  instructed,  the  inspector  rejoined  that  it  was 
easy  for  teachers  to  influence  parents,  and  that  to 
God  the  question  was  indifferent,  since  He  under- 
stood German  as  well  as  Danish.  Official  influence, 
it  is  obvious,  is  hardly  favourable  to  religious  in- 
struction in  Danish.  And  when  once  religious  in- 
struction has  ceased  to  be  given  in  Danish  in  any 
school,  it  cannot  be  begun  again.  A  Government 
order  of  1910,  which  amplifies  the  original  order  of 
1888,  makes  it  clear  that  "to  recommence  religious 
instruction  in  Danish  in  a  school  where  it  has  ceased 
to  be  given  is  impossible." 

It  may  illustrate  the  actual  position  of  the  whole 
question  if  we  quote  some  statistics  of  the  year  1910. 
Of  250  school  districts,  it  appears  that  in  thirty, 
even  before  the  order  of  1888,  religious  instruction 
was  entirely  given  in  German,  while  in  twenty-five 
religious  instruction  had  since  1888  ceased  to  be 
given  in  Danish,  and  had  come  by  1910  to  be  given 
exclusively  in  German.  In  five,  religious  instruction 
was  given  entirely  in  Danish:  in  190  it  was  given 
both  in  German  and  in  Danish,  40  per  cent,  of  the 
children  in  these  districts  receiving  religious  instruc- 
tion in  German,  and  60  per  cent,  in  Danish. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  concerned  with  the  ele- 
mentary schools  of  North  Slesvig.  The  principle 


30  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

of  compulsion  has  also  been  applied  to  secondary 
schools.  The  school  age,  during  which  children 
are  bound  to  attend  elementary  schools,  stops  at 
the  age  of  confirmation — that  is  to  say,  about  the 
age  of  1 6.  But  the  Prussian  Government  has  been 
anxious  for  a  link  which  would  connect  the  German 
influence  of  the  elementary  school  with  the  German 
influence  of  the  barracks.  This  has  been  found  in 
what  we  may  call  continuation  schools.  Originally 
organised  for  apprentices  in  commerce  and  industry, 
they  were  extended  by  a  provincial  law  of  1912  to 
agriculture.  Henceforth  boys  in  the  country  under 
1 8  might  be  required  in  the  winter  to  attend  four 
lessons — of  course  in  German — every  week.  It 
is  significant  that  the  Government  caused  it  to  be 
understood  that  the  law  would  only  be  applied  in 
districts  which  were  "menaced  from  a  national  point 
of  view." 

If  we  turn^to  secondary  schools  proper,  as  distinct 
from  continuation  schools,  the  first  fact  to  remark 
is  the  abolition,  in  1871,  of  the  popular  Danish  high 
schools  in  North  Slesvig.  Henceforth  secondary 
schools  in  the  district  were  German  schools.  Under 
these  conditions  Danish  parents  began  to  send  their 
children  to  schools  in  the  kingdom  of  Denmark. 
This  was  stopped,  by  a  judicial  decision  of  1882,  so 
far  as  children  of  school  age  (that  is  to  say,  children 
not  yet  confirmed)  were  concerned.  But  the  School 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  31 

Union  of  North  Slesvig,  founded  in  1892  as  an  an- 
swer to  the  order  of  1888,  has  undertaken  to  finance 
poor  children  over  school  age  who  desire  to  attend 
secondary  schools  in  Denmark.  Its  membership  in 
1914  was  over  11,000;  and  within  twenty  years  of 
its  foundation  it  had  helped  5,673  students  to  attain 
the  secondary  education  they  desired.  The  provin- 
cial Government  at  first  tried  to  stop  its  activities, 
to  prevent  parents  from  sending  their  children  to 
Denmark,  and  to  deprive  them  of  the  right  of  paren- 
tal control  if  they  persisted;  but  to  the  honour  of 
the  law-courts  it  must  be  said  that  they  refused  to 
recognise  the  validity  of  this  action  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

It  remains  to  be  added  that  another  union  (the 
same  principle  of  voluntary  association,  which  the 
pressure  of  Government  has  produced  in  Poland, 
has  also  been  produced  by  the  same  pressure  in 
North  Slesvig)  has  also  been  active.  This  is  the 
Union  for  the  Defence  of  the  Danish  Language, 
founded  about  1880,  which  has  organised  popular 
libraries  and  distributed  Danish  literature  broadcast. 

These  facts  are  sufficient  to  prove  what  was  said 
above — that  the  model  of  Poland  has  been  followed 
(in  some  respects  with  an  increase  of  stringency) 
in  North  Slesvig.  In  North  Slesvig,  as  in  Poland, 
the  imperial  law  of  1908  is,  of  course,  operative, 
and  Danish  can  only  be  used  in  public  meetings 


32  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

subject  to  its  provisions.  It  was  significant  that  in 
1913  the  Norwegian  explorer,  Amundsen,  was  for- 
bidden by  the  local  authorities  of  North  Slesvig 
to  deliver  a  lecture  on  his  travels  in  his  native  lan- 
guage— Norwegian — on  the  ground  that  it  was  too 
closely  akin  to  Danish,  and  could  not  therefore  be 
used  in  a  public  meeting,  though  it  must  be  added 
that  the  prohibition  of  the  local  authorities  was 
afterwards  removed  by  the  Prussian  Minister  of  the 
Interior. 

In  North  Slesvig  again,  as  in  Poland,  linguistic 
oppression  is  backed  by  oppression  of  other  kinds. 
One  may  refer  especially  to  the  agrarian  policy  of 
the  Prussian  Government,  which  leads  it  to  attempt 
to  expropriate  Danish  landowners  in  North  Slesvig 
and  Polish  landowners  in  Prussian  Poland.  The 
Prussian  law  of  1912  is  significant,  by  which,  "in 
order  to  render  stronger- and  more  settled  German 
agricultural  property  in  those  parts  of  the  provinces 
of  East  Prussia,  Pomerania,  Upper  Silesia  and 
Schleswig-Holstein,  which  are  menaced  from  a 
national  point  of  view,"  the  Prussian  Government 
was  armed  with  a  sum  of  £5,000,000  for  purposes  of 
expropriation. 

One  last  fact  remains  to  be  noticed.  In  the  days 
when  Slesvig  was  connected  by  a  personal  union 
with  the  kingdom  of  Denmark,  before  1864,  the 
Danish  kings  sought  to  enforce  the  use  of  the 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  33 

Danish  language  in*  the  province.  The  Prussian 
Government  can  thus  plead  that  it  is  only  returning 
measure  for  measure,  and  it  has  sometimes  been 
ingenious  enough  to  repeat,  mutatis  mutandis,  the 
measures  of  the  Danish  kings.  But  the  Germans 
protested  strongly,  before  1864,  against  these  meas- 
ures when  they  were  enforced  against  themselves; 
and  it  is  at  the  least  curious  that  they  should  enforce 
against  the  Danes  measures  of  the  same  order  as 
those  which  they  were  indignant  at  having  enforced 
against  themselves.  That,  however,  is  what  they 
have  done ;  and  they  have  done  it  thoroughly.  The 
whips  of  the  Danish  kings  have  become  the  scorpions 
of  the  Prussian  Government. 


34  LINGUISTIC   OPPRESSION 


III.-ALSACE-LORRAINE 

IT  might  seem  impossible  that  there  should  be  any 
serious  linguistic  question  in  Alsace-Lorraine.  The 
bulk  of  the  population  has  always  spoken  German, 
or  rather  a  patois  of  German ;  and  indeed  it  was  one 
of  the  arguments  of  Germany  for  the  "recovery"  of 
Alsace  (if  not  for  the  annexation  of  the  part  of 
Lorraine  which  she  took  along  with  Alsace)  that 
its  population  was  predominantly  German  in  speech. 
But  a  linguistic  question  has  none  the  less  arisen. 
The  use  of  the  French  language,  even  by  a  minority, 
has  seemed  to  the  imperial  Government,  which,  as 
we  have  seen, \administers  Alsace-Lorraine,  a  danger 
to  German  culture  and  a  menace  to  German  national- 
ism; and  the  French  language  has  accordingly  been 
made  taboo. 

An  instructive  contrast  may  be  drawn  between 
the  policy  of  the  French  Government  towards  the 
use  of  the  German  language,  prior  to  1870,  and  the 
policy  of  the  German  Government  towards  the  use 
of  the  French  language  since  1870.  France  made  no 
effort  to  spread  her  culture  (it  spread  of  itself) ;  she 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  35 

never  sought  to  enforce  her  language  or  to  deny  to 
the  Germans  schools  of  their  own.  There  was  a 
large  majority  of  German-speaking  inhabitants 
before  1870.  While  40,000  persons  in  Alsace,  and 
140,000  in  Lorraine,  were  reckoned  as  belonging  to 
purely  French  districts,  1,340,000  were  counted  as 
belonging  to  German  or  mixed  districts.  No  attempt 
was  made  to  alter  the  balance.  When  Charles  X. 
visited  Strasbourg,  some  time  before  1830,  he 
apologised  to  the  mayor  for  being  unable  to  answer 
a  German  address  in  the  same  language.  In  1867 
a  French  minister  told  the  French  Chamber  that  it 
was  impossible  to  banish  German  from  Alsace,  since 
it  was  indispensable  to  the  inhabitants;  and  Napo- 
leon III.,  in  the  same  year,  when  he  visited  Stras- 
bourg, thanked  the  teachers  for  their  pains  in 
teaching  French,  but  advised  them  not  to  neglect 
the  teaching  of  German.  In  1868  the  local  authority 
for  elementary  education  on  the  Upper  Rhine  decided 
that  German  ought  to  be  taught  with  the  same  care 
as  French.  In  1870  the  proclamations  of  the  French 
Government  were  posted  in  Alsace  in  both  languages. 
The  Germans,  who  enforced  in  Slesvig  a  treatment 
of  language  modelled  on  that  of  the  Danish  kings, 
were  very  far  from  following  the  model  of  the  French 
Government  when  they  annexed  Alsace-Lorraine. 
It  is  true  that  they  left  French  law  in  force  until 
they  introduced  their  own  code  in  1900.  There  was 


36  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

no  valid  reason  why  they  should  not  have  pursued 
a  similar  policy  towards  the  French  language.  It 
was  the  language  of  a  small  minority;  it  was  not, 
any  more  than  Danish  was  in  North  Slesvig  in  1870, 
a  political  symbol  or  rallying-ground.  But  an 
attack  on  the  French  language  was  none  the  less 
begun,  and  begun  at  once,  in  1871.  French  was 
suppressed  in  elementary  schools,  and  in  secondary 
schools  it  was  only  allowed  to  be  taught  as  a  foreign 
language.  In  1872  German  was  made  the  language 
of  administration;  in  1882  it  was  made  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Provincial  Council  of  Alsace-Lorraine; 
in  1887  it  was  made  the  language  of  the  courts. 

Here  again  the  model  of  Poland  has  been  followed 
with  an  exact  nicety.  In  just  the  same  way,  French 
names  for  streets  have  been  proscribed:  the  use  of 
French  has  been  forbidden  for  shop-signs,  for  in- 
scriptions on  tomb-stones,  for  Christian  names,  and 
for  the  names \  of  firms  on  the  hats  of  employees. 
It  was  said  to  be  unsafe,  a  few  years,  ago,  to  write 
a  menu  in  French;  and  a  policeman  might  enter  a 
tobacconist's  shop  to  order  the  taking  down  of  a 
sign  which  announced,  in  French,  that  French 
cigarettes  were  on  sale.  The  vocabulary  of  the 
province  is  regimented:  it  must  say  kajffee,  and  not 
cafe:  it  must  write  modistin  and  not  modiste. 

The  policy  has  its  comic  side;  but  it  has  also, 
and  to  a  still  greater  extent,  a  tragic  side.  When 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  37 

they  are  alone,  one  is  told,  the  children  in  French 
districts  play  in  French.  When  they  see  a  stranger 
approaching,  they  betake  themselves,  as  well  as  they 
can,  to  German.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  rules 
and  regulations,  the  knowledge  of  French  has  in- 
creased. The  number  of  Alsatians  who  return 
French  as  their  national  language  has  grown  from 
census  to  census.  Newspapers  which  were  once 
only  printed  in  German  have  begun  to  be  also 
printed  in  French,  or  even  to  be  only  printed  in 
French.  The  French  language  has  its  own  charm  and 
its  inevitable  vogue ;  the  French  culture  has  its  irre- 
sistible attraction;  and  both  spread. 

In  Alsace-Lorraine,  as  in  other  parts  of  the 
Empire,  the  imperial  law  of  1908  checks  the  use 
of  any  language  other  than  German  in  public  meet- 
ings. Another  imperial  law — the  law  of  1911,  under 
which  Alsace-Lorraine  was  granted  a  new  constitu- 
tion— has  also  affected,  and  affected  for  the  worse, 
the  linguistic  question  in  the  province.  Under  the 
"paragraph  of  languages"  in  this  constitution,  Ger- 
man is  declared,  by  the  legislative  act  of  the  German 
Reichstag,  to  be  the  language  of  education  and 
administration  in  Alsace-Lorraine.  It  follows  from 
this  that  the  provincial  Diet  instituted  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine  by  the  new  constitution  is  impotent  to 
deal  with  the  use  of  French  in  education  and  admin- 
istration. The  use  of  German  for  both  purposes  is 


38  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

a  "fundamental  article,"  which  the  Reichstag  may 
(but  certainly  will  not)  alter,  but  the  Provincial 
Diet  cannot  touch.  It  follows  again,  as  was  noticed 
before  in  regard  to  the  law  of  1908,  that  the  policy 
of  linguistic  oppression  is  not  merely  the  result  of 
bureaucratic  government,  but  is  also  the  deliberate 
will  of  the  German  people,  as  expressed  by  its  rep- 
resentatives. 

The  curious  thing  is  that,  while  French  is  thus 
proscribed,  the  German  Government  has  been  wittily 
and  bitterly  criticised  by  the  Alsatians  in  German. 
Some  of  the  best  caricatures  in  Europe  were  those 
published,  before  the  war,  by  Zislin,  in  a  paper  called 
Dur's  Elsass.  It  adds  to  the  piquancy  of  these  cari- 
catures for  any  outsider  (for  the  German  it  must 
add  to  their  enormity)  that  they  are  published  in 
German — or  at  any  rate  in  a  German  patois.  "What 
can  Germany  do,"  a  French  writer  asks,  "with  a 
people  who  are  French  at  heart,  and  who  speak 
German?" 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  39 


IV.-FLANDERS 

THE  policy  of  Germany  in  Belgium,  during  the 
military  occupation  since  1914,  throws  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  German  attitude  to  linguistic  questions. 
Here  Germany,  apparently  reversing  her  whole  atti- 
tude, has  posed  as  the  liberator  of  an  oppressed 
language — that  of  the  Flemings.  Accusing  the 
Belgian  Government  of  having  been  guilty,  in  the 
years  prior  to  1914,  of  linguistic  oppression  of  the 
Flemings,  she  has  set  herself,  or  rather  she  has  pro- 
fessed to  set  herself,  to  redress  the  wrong  of  which 
it  had  been  guilty,  and,  giving  the  Flemings  a 
university  of  their  own,  to  give  them  their  language 
and  their  nationality. 

Belgium  is  peopled  on  the  east  by  Walloons,  who 
speak  French,  and  on  the  west  by  Flemings,  who 
speak  Flemish,  a  language  which  is  Teutonic  in 
character.  Before  the  war  the  champions  of  the 
latter  language,  the  Flamigants,  were  pressing  for 
its  recognition,  particularly  in  university  teaching. 
They  pointed  to  the  fact  that  French  was  the  only 
language  used  in  Belgian  Universities,  except  in 
Ghent,  where  (in  the  year  1911)  only  twenty-four 


40  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

courses  of  lectures,  out  of  a  total  of  248,  were  given 
in  Flemish.  They  sought,  at  first,  to  establish  a 
new  all-Flemish  university  in  Antwerp,  the  natural 
Flemish  centre;  but  as  this  required  a  larger  en- 
dowment than  could  be  found,  they  proposed  that 
in  the  existing  University  of  Ghent  all  lectures 
should  be  given  in  Flemish.  This  proposal  was 
under  discussion  when  the  war  began  in  1914. 

When  the  Germans  established  themselves  in 
Belgium,  they  saw  in  this  internal  struggle  an  oppor- 
tunity of  fostering  division,  to  their  own  benefit, 
among  the  Belgian  people.  They  said  to  themselves 
Divide  et  Impera;  and  their  journalists  and  publi- 
cists, under  a  common  inspiration,  began  to  proclaim 
that  Belgium  was  not  a  country  of  a  single  national- 
ity, but  of  two;  that  one  of  these,  the  Flemish, 
had  been  oppressed  by  the  other,  the  French;  and 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  Germans  to  come  to  the 
rescue'of  their  cousins,  the  Flemings,  and  to  resusci- 
tate their  national  life.  It  is  needless  to  enquire 
into  the  ultimate  political  objects  which  lay  behind 
these  arguments;  what  we  have  to  consider  is  the 
action  to  which  they  led.  On  the  last  day  of  Decem- 
ber, 1915,  the  German  Governor-General  of  Belgium 
issued  a  decree  that  Flemish  should  be  the  language 
used  in  the  University  of  Ghent.  The  validity  of  the 
decree,  under  the  rules  of  international  law,  is  per- 
haps dubious;  for  it  interfered  with  the  internal 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  41 

affairs  of  an  occupied  country  in  a  way  which 
military  exigencies  could  not  be  said  to  require. 
But  the  German  Chancellor,  in  April  of  1916, 
adopted  the  policy  of  the  Governor-General,  and 
promised  the  Flemings  every  assistance  in  their 
struggle  against  the  preponderance  of  French 
culture. 

How  have  the  Flemings  met  this  policy?  Some 
of  them,  about  a  hundred  in  number,  have  signed  a 
manifesto  in  its  favour.  But  not  one  of  the  old 
leaders  of  the  Flamigants  was  among  the  signatories ; 
while  a  number  of  vigorous  protests  against  the 
policy,  no  less  from  Flemings  than  from  Walloons, 
have  appeared  in  Belgian  papers.  The  severities 
and  the  difficulties  into  which  the  German  Govern- 
ment has  fallen  in  seeking  to  enforce  its  policy  are 
sufficient  proof  of  its  unpopularity.  The  severity 
which  has  most  astonished  the  world  was  the  arrest, 
in  March,  1916,  of  two  of  the  Professors  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Ghent,  who  had  a  European  reputation 
for  scholarship — Professor  Pirenne  and  Professor 
Fredericq — the  latter  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Flemish  movement.  They  were  arrested,  deported 
to  Germany,  and  interned  in  a  war-prisoners'  camp, 
because  they  protested  against  the  policy  of  the 
Governor-General,  or,  as  the  Governor-General  him- 
self somewhat  obscurely  stated,  "because  they 
influenced  their  colleagues  in  a  prohibited  manner 


42  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

with  the  object  of  preventing  them  from  carrying 
out  their  official  duties." 

To  give  freedom  to  Flanders  through  severity  of 
this  kind  cannot  but  appear  paradoxical.  And  the 
difficulties  experienced  by  the  German  authorities 
in  finding  professors  in  Flanders  for  a  purely  Flemish 
university  are  also  significant.  Not  till  the  autumn 
of  1916  could  the  new  policy  be  put  into  execution. 
Only  two  members  of  the  old  staff  consented  to 
serve.  Several  professors  had  to  be  imported  from 
Holland;  and  these,  as  Dutch  newspapers  pointed 
out,  were  really  German  in  origin  or  training,  while 
one  of  them  was  a  naturalised  German  who  had 
fought  for  Germany  in  the  war.  The  remainder  of 
the  new  professoriate  consisted  of  persons  who  had 
previously  been  assistant-teachers  in  Belgium.  This 
was  the  staff  with  which  the  "purely  Flemish" 
university  of  Ghent  opened  its  first  session  on 
October  24,  ^1916 — the  same  day  on  which  5,000  of 
the  working-class  population  of  Ghent  were  deported 
to  Germany. 

The  composition  of  the  staff  would  seem  to  sug- 
gest— what  several  foreign  newspapers  have  openly 
stated — that  the  real  intention  of  the  Germans  was 
to  turn  the  University  of  Ghent  into  a  German 
rather  than  a  Flemish  University.  Not  only  is  one 
of  the  professors  a  naturalised  German  who  has 
fought  on  the  German  side  in  the  war;  another  is  a 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  43 

Dutchman  who  has  defended  the  German  violation 
of  Belgian  neutrality  as  a  new  ethical  creation,  pro- 
ceeding from  "the  higher  morals  which  Germany 
inaugurated  by  its  epoch-making  action."  Under 
conditions  such  as  these  the  suspicion  of  a  policy  of 
Germanisation  is  natural.  Germany  may  seem  to 
have  reversed  her  old  policy,  and  to  have  substituted, 
for  once,  a  policy  of  linguistic  liberation  for  a  policy 
of  linguistic  oppression.  Has  she  really  done  so? 
Not  only  does  the  composition  of  the  staff  of  the 
"purely  Flemish"  University  of  Ghent  suggest  a 
negative  answer :  there  are  other  facts  that  point  the 
same  way.  When,  for  instance,  early  in  1915,  the 
German  administration  ordered  the  removal  of 
French  and  English  shop  signs  in  Flanders,  on  the 
ground  that  Flemish  was  henceforth  the  official  lan- 
guage, the  old  signs  were  in  several  places  replaced 
by  signs  in  German.  Flemish  may  prove,  after  all, 
to  have  been  a  stalking-horse  for  the  introduction 
of  German. 

But  at  present,  at  any  rate,  the  German  Govern- 
ment is  wedded  to  Flemish  and  to  the  encouragement 
(or  rather,  to  be  more  exact,  the  enforcement)  of 
the  use  of  Flemish.  Flemish,  since  the  beginning 
of  1916,  has  been  the  only  language  of  official  inter- 
course permitted  in  Flanders,  and  the  education  of 
children  in  Flemish  primary  schools  has  been  made 
compulsory. 


44  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

It  is  curious  to  think  of  the  German  conqueror 
forcing  the  Flemings  to  speak  Flemish;  but  that  is 
the  fact.  A  statement  in  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  of 
January  17,  1918,  will  illustrate  the  fact.  According 
to  this  statement,  the  official  record  of  laws  and 
ordinances  for  the  occupied  territories  in  Belgium 
has  ceased  to  appear  in  a  single  trilingual  edition 
(in  German,  Flemish  and  French)  and  will  hence- 
forth appear  in  two  bilingual  editions,  one  in  Ger- 
man and  Flemish,  and  the  other  in  German  and 
Walloon.  "This  measure  is  a  proof  of  the  deliberate 
execution  of  the  policy  of  administrative  separation. 
It  is  of  the  greatest  importance,  especially  for  the 
administrative  district  of  Flanders.  The  local  au- 
thorities, who  have  hitherto  offered,  more  or  less,  a 
passive  resistance  to  the  execution  of  the  linguistic 
regulations,  and  have  excused  themselves  on  the  ground 
of  their  defective  knowledge  of  Flemish,  are  now  com- 
pelled to  master  Flemish,  because  they  only  receive  the 
German  ordinances  in  this  language."  After  this, 
one  is  surely  justified  in  talking  of  the  German 
attempt  to  force  the  Flemings  to  speak  Flemish. 

What  looks  like  linguistic  liberation  is  at  bottom 
linguistic  oppression  still.  Just  as  the  Germans  seek 
to  force  Poles,  Danes  and  Frenchmen  to  speak 
German  in  order  to  gain  a  political  object,  so  they 
are  now  forcing  the  Flemings  to  speak  Flemish,  and 
Flemish  only,  in  order  to  gain  a  political  object. 


IN    THE    GERMAN    EMPIRE  45 

They  force  Poles,  Danes  and  Frenchmen  to  speak 
German  in  order  that  they  may  be  incorporated 
fully  in  Germany ;  they  force  the  Flemings  to  speak 
Flemish  in  order  that  they  may  be  separated  from 
the  Walloons. 

But  if  Flanders  were  (absit  omen}  to  remain 
German,  the  same  policy  would  be  pursued  in 
Flanders  that  has  been  pursued  in  North  Slesvig. 
Just  as  the  Danish  tongue  has  been  practically 
forbidden — though  it  is  no  less  Teutonic  than  the 
Flemish — so,  too,  would  the  Flemish  tongue  be 
practically  forbidden.  The  policy  of  encouragement 
— compulsory  encouragement — is  only  temporary, 
in  order  to  gain  a  temporary  object.  If  Flanders 
were  permanently  incorporated  in  Germany,  the 
permanent  German  policy  of  linguistic  oppression 
would  be  pursued  in  Flanders,  as  it  has  been  pur- 
sued elsewhere,  in  order  to  gain  the  permanent 
German  object  of  mechanical  uniformity. 


The  facts  which  have  been  recited  in  this  paper 
speak  for  themselves  quite  clearly;  and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  point  any  moral,  or  draw  any  contrast. 
Any  South  African,  any  Canadian,  any  Irishman, 
can  draw  a  contrast  for  himself.  And  any  reader 
may  point  one  simple  moral,  which  is  this,  that 
compulsory  annexation  is  followed  by  compulsory 


46  LINGUISTIC    OPPRESSION 

assimilation,  and  that  compulsory  assimilation  brings 
misery  into  the  school,  misery  into  the  home,  and 
misery  everywhere.  Prussian  Poland,  North  Slesvig, 
Alsace-Lorraine  are  all  the  fruits  of  compulsory  an- 
nexation. May  no  such  fruits  be  gathered  in  the 
time  to  come ! 


A   LIST  OF  SOME  BOOKS 

BEARING    ON    THE    SUBJECT 

1.  PRUSSIAN   POLAND: 

Marius    Ary-Leblond.      La    Pologne    Vivante, 

Part  IV.,  Book  I.,  c.  iii. 
W.    H.    Dawson.      The  Evolution   of  Modern 

Germany,  c.  xxiii. 

H.  Moysset.    L'Esprit  public  en  Allemagne,  c.  i. 
W.  Martin.     La  Crise  politique  de  I' Allemagne 

contemporaine,  Part  II.,  c.  ii. 

2.  NORTH   SLESVIG: 

Les  Associations  Slesvicoises  Reunies  du  Dane- 
mark.  Le  Slesvig  du  Nord,  Part  III.,  c.  i. 
(by  N.  Hansen). 

W.  Martin.     Op.  cit.,  c.  iii. 

H.  Rosendal.     The  Problem  of  Danish  Slesvig. 

3.  ALSACE-LORRAINE: 

W.  Martin.    Op.  cit.,  I.,  c.  v. 
M.  Leroy.    L' Alsace-Lorraine. 
Florent-Matter.    L' Alsace-Lorraine  de  nos  jours. 


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